The Scarlet Empress

This biopic about the rise of the German Princess Sofia to Empress Catherine of Russia, from naive and deferential innocent to rapacious predator, is accurate only in the broadest outlines. Even the opening credits indicate a loose approach to fact: "Based on a diary of Catherine," "arranged by Manuel Komroff."

In the first half Marlene Dietrich in the title role overplays breathless awe so emphatically that one can only wonder if she was strictly directed to do so; after her sexual awakening after months of resisting the stirring of her passions by a rakish courtier (John Lodge) and crazed with frustration by her unconsummated marriage to the repellent Tsar-to-be Peter (Sam Jaffe), she melts into the arms of a palace guard during a sudden moonlit encounter.

It's hard to believe this film passed the 1934 censors, given its open suggestions of out-of-wedlock sex (and subsequent pregnancy); Dietrich's posturings call to mind pre-Code Mae West (who was a friendly acquaintance of Dietrich's on the Paramount lot where they were working at the same time). Perhaps the keepers of the Code were too distracted by the shimmering vision of the blonde icon as lit by Josef von Sternberg. And make no mistake about it, this movie is a paean to Dietrich as a work of art. The "Catherine the Great" plot, scenic design and supporting players are the scaffolding and trappings supporting and surrounding the living goddess.

These trappings are highly stylized and elaborate as, for example, the Lubitsch-like ritual of Princess Sophia (the future Empress Catherine) kissing the hands of all adults present whenever she enters or exits a room; when she isn't engaged in strictly supervised activities she is kept locked in her bedroom several flights above the main floor of her house; her mother is such a disciplinarian that she scolds the child even when the child obeys. Empress Elizabeth of Russia (Louise Dresser) is introduced on a grand throne in forbidding surroundings decorated with huge grimacing gargoyles festooned with dripping candles and attended by over-dressed lackeys, only to open her mouth and jabber like a bilious small-minded housewife. And the future Tsar Peter whom Sophia is sent to Russia to marry is an imbecile and described as such repeatedly in intertitles in case we miss the point.

In fact the flow of exaggerations and extremes is more or less constant so that the viewer is alternately hypnotized and amused. If Dietrich is not your cup of tea, the movie will repel you, because it's all about her.

Truly one of the greatest films ever made (see the International Film Critics' Top 100 Films list as well). Dietrich was never more luminous, nor cinematography more gorgeous, than in THE SCARLET EMPRESS. It's in black and white, but you'll feel like it's in full and glorious color. History it's not, but who cares? This is the way things should have been.

This picture is absolutely one of the oddest damn things ever to come out of the old Hollywood studio system. Von Sternberg himself called it "a relentless exercise in pure style" and he wasn't kidding. Where to begin? For starters, it marks the apex of Sternberg's worship of Marlene Dietrich (worship is hardly too strong a word; it might not be strong enough). His justly famous expressionistic lighting, brilliantly shot by Bert Glennon, dazzles the eye throughout. During the wedding ceremony, for instance, the whole scene is lit by what must be 10,000 candles and is shot through a variety of diffusion materials; in one shot Dietrich's face can hardly be more than a foot from the camera lens but there is a candle between them, and fabric as well, making her face waver and melt into the sensuous texture. This scene is largely silent, and the movie as a whole, though made in 1934, is often silent with music only. Rubinstein's "Kammenoi-Ostrow" arranged for chorus and orchestra plays through the whole wedding scene while Sam Jaffe, a wonderful and versatile actor, plays the insane Grand Duke Peter like Harpo Marx on bad acid. The dialogue throughout is just plain weird, and the mise-en-scene far weirder. Sternberg has created an entire fictitious style for this movie that might be called Russian Gothic. The buildings in no way resemble the airy rococo palaces where the real Empress Elisavieta Petrovna spent her time; rather we are given a nightmarish phantasmagoria of wooden architecture with railings and balustrades carved into the shape of peasants in attitudes of great suffering, and vast doors which armies of ladies-in-waiting struggle to open and close. The aftermath of a brutal feast is portrayed with a skeletal tureen stand presiding over the indescribable flotsam and jetsam. Louise Dresser is a hoot as Empress Elizabeth, never mind the accent; and I also like John Lodge, although I didn't at first; the aplomb with which he delivers his outrageous dialogue finally won me over. Please ignore all the stupid stories about Catherine the Great and horses that you may have heard; there isn't an ounce of evidence for any of them. Instead relish the opening of this gloriously crazy movie: Edward van Sloan, in his best "Dracula/Frankenstein" mode, reading to the little girl Catherine about Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, as we dissolve to fantastic scenes of barbaric torture, culminating in a shot of some peasant being used as the clapper of a bell, which dissolves to the sweet young adult Catherine of some years later on a swing. In the 18th century, swings were considered highly erotic, and Sternberg misses none of this. She is called away by a servant, and runs breathlessly into the parlor where her parents are receiving the Russian envoys. Her actions are literally choreographed to the music as she bobs and weaves around the room, kissing hands and saluting her elders. This is pure cinema, and absolutely nuts, but glorious. Take a good strong snort of whatever your favorite mind-expander may be (a dry red wine with a shot of Stolichnaya under it is my recommendation in this case) and blast your brain with a truly strange movie made by real artists.

Two gnarled statues of grotesque beasts make love in the garden, a perverse cuckoo clock exposes female bodily organs, a skeletal figure shot through with arrows twists its face in a silent wail towards heaven. This is the decor of "The Scarlet Empress," furnishings which speak more of the film's themes and ideas than the plot could ever be allowed to. The actors remain intentionally wooden; it's as if the world around them was an expression of their suppressed emotions. Shame takes the guise of chairs, but chairs in the shape of gargantuan, deformed old men hiding their stricken faces in hideous fingers. Masochism is occasionally a clock, lust a decorative food display, but all perverse, leering. And death... Everywhere is a ghastly preoccupation with death, icons proudly display decapitation, skeletons stretch themselves over boiling cauldrons, while ghastly statues of tortured corpses lurk in every shadowy corner. Together this creates a world of painful decadence, a disgusting, yet fascinating dreamscape of visual pleasure.

All this takes form and depth, is sculpted by director Sternberg's haunting lighting. It is "his" light, he lords over it, and with it anything is possible. He can make a face beautiful or ugly, innocent or evil. He can accentuate a certain side of a person's nature, or how a specific set piece relates to it, all with the proper illumination.

If his lighting is astounding, equally so is Sternberg's use of the visual motifs in his mise en scene (bells, veils, figures, specific set pieces, etc...) to transport the viewer back and forth through the film. For instance, the binding of Catherine and Peter's hands at their marriage is later echoed by an unquestionably similar knot Catherine ties in a napkin she is fondling, and then tosses onto the table of she and Peter's last meal together. The initiation of their marriage and the initiation of its end are in this way linked, and the audience is forced to take into account the changes in both their characters. Not only does the rhythm of these motifs remain figurative. The movement of the film takes on a distinct rhythm as well. A swinging motif is evident throughout, the bells, the incense burners, Catherine's swing, the hoopskirts, a baby's basket, and so on. In this the film takes the feel of a frenzied, but excellently choreographed dance.

But in all this there is one thing more noteworthy. Marlene Dietrich radiates! Quite possibly the most beautiful woman who ever lived, she begins innocent and virginal (seemingly intentionally melodramatically), standing out in a world of amorality. She is both the happiest and saddest point of the film. Her wedding to the vulgar Peter in an immense, yet claustrophobic cathedral is the most emotional part of the film. As it is filmed entirely in a series of close-ups of individuals, and long shots that blur their faces, there is no discernible eye connection between any of the characters. She is completely alone. As a voyeuristic camera cuts closer and closer to her trembling, veiled face, we suddenly feel the need to turn away. We know now that this last thread of decency is about to be crippled. Soon enough her innocence begins to fade before her sexuality, and the surroundings that once nearly suppressed her, she lords over, a queen of immorality.

"The Scarlet Empress" expresses the essence of film, and why it succeeds as an art form. It creates the possibility of a world almost wholly artificial, divorced from anything that ever was. It retains only fragmentary reproductions of something that existed in a pre-filmed state, combining and distorting them to effect something 90% fake. What's more that seems all it is interested in. No other artistic medium (aside from painting) is viewed worthy of its visuals, and all theatrical, literary, or other requirements are given little attention. They are flippantly thrown in only to please a narrow minded audience, and occasionally (but very, very rarely) to accentuate the films themes. Yet painting, ah yes, painting. That was a medium worthy of a brilliant visionary like Sternberg, and one he transferred to the screen with gusto. "The Scarlet Empress" is to Dali in its obsession with the bizarre, da Vinci in its detail, Picasso in its complexity of associations, but entirely Sternberg in its conception.

An innocent & obscure German princess is sent to Russia to become the wife of Grand Duke Peter, heir to the throne. Her romantic dreams are shattered when she finds her new husband to be a childish imbecile. Quickly growing wise, she soon begins taking lovers from among the military guard. So begins the legendary life of Catherine, Tsarina of Holy Russia, The Messalina of the North, THE SCARLET EMPRESS.

A riotous feast for the eyes, this is one of the great, unheralded films of the 1930's - enthralling for its visual impact alone. Seldom has an American film been filled with such lush imagery - tactile, grotesque, fascinating. The Russian royal palace is a charnel house full of ghouls & gargoyles - human & artistic. The actors share the scenes with fantastic statuary, twisting & writhing in silent, unspeakable pain. (Notice the tiny skeletons on the dining table.) Everywhere is death, moral decay & barbarism, even in the most powerful court in Europe.

At the center of this ossuary is the gorgeous Marlene Dietrich. Her beauty radiates, but never dominates, throughout the film. She is splendid as a young woman in a very dangerous place, who gains courage & great determination in her ordeal. Equally good is Sam Jaffe as Peter; with his leering grin & demented eyes he is the very picture of a murderous madman.

Louise Dresser, as the Empress Elizabeth, is very effective as a comic bully. John Lodge & Gavin Gordon, as Catherine's military lovers, are both stalwart. Wonderful old Sir C. Aubrey Smith has a small role as Catherine's princely father. Film mavens will spot an uncredited Jane Darwell as Catherine's nurse.

The highly emotional soundtrack, an amalgam of themes by Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn & Wagner, explodes in the film's final moments into musical pyrotechnics.